Canada votes

[Scooter]

There is a federal election in Canada today. It has been an election season like none other. Just a few months ago, with many Canadians fed up with the Trudeau Liberal government, the Conservative Party of Canada seemed poised to win a massive majority of 210+ seats in the 343 seat parliament. The Liberal Party was one again flirting with becoming the third place party. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was riding high on a Trump-like message of anti-wokeism and "Canada First". Then a couple of things happened.

First was Justin Trudeau announcing his resignation on January 6, after resisting calls from within the party to resign for almost a year.

Then came the opening of Trump's tariff war and announcing his desire to annex Canada as the "51st state", which caused a wave of nationalistic fervor, and specifically anti-Americanism, that I have not seen in my lifetime.

The Conservatives were slow to pivot towards the new mood in the country. And the Liberals selected Mark Carney as their new leader, former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, someone seen as able to guide the country with a steady yet forceful hand in dealing with an existential threat.

The result - a Conservative lead in the polls of 25 points has evaporated. I wouldn't say that the Conservative vote has collapsed; while down about 7 to 8 points from their highs before Trudeau resigned, at 38% they are polling about 4 points higher than in the 2021 election. But key to the new Liberal rise has been voters leaving the leftist New Democratic Party and the leftist wing of the Bloc Québecois in droves to support the Liberals to prevent Pierre Poilieve (described by longtime Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke as the "karaoke version of Trump") from gaining power, the race devolving into a two party race for the first time in many decades.

So with about 43% support, the Liberals are projected to form a majority government. But it all depends on who turns out to vote, because in many key electoral districts the polling is quite close.

I'll keep you updated as results begin to come in after 9:30PM EDT tonight.

[BoSoxGal]

Elbows up, Canadians!

[Scooter]

Latest results:

Liberal 151
Conservative 118
BQ 23
NDP 6

to come 45

172 needed for a majority

[Scooter]

The race has definitely tightened up

Liberal 158
Conservative 148
BQ 25
NDP 10
Green 1

to come 1

A Liberal majority is all but a dream now. As is the traditional minority parliament situation when a minority Liberal government can reach a majority with NDP support. We're in for interesting times.

Not staying up late enough to see how this plays out. Will have some analysis tomorrow, maybe.

[Scooter]

Looks like I spoke too soon:

Seat count (popular vote %)
Liberal 168 (44%)
Conservative 144 (41%)
BQ 23 (6%)
NDP 7 (6%)
Green 1 (1%)

It's still not possible to determine if the Liberals can reach a 172 seat majority, because Elections Canada stopped counting mail ballots sometime in the night and will resume the count at 9:30 am. Several districts are too close to call based on that.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilieve was defeated in his district of Carleton, in the Ottawa area, after representing it for 22 years. Presumably another Conservative MP in a safe seat will resign so that Poilievre can win in a by-election.

The Liberal victory was made possible by the utter collapse of the NDP vote, the party's worst showing in seats since 1993 and its worst ever popular vote share, and also by the decline in the vote for the Bloc Québecois. The Conservatives actually did extremely well, with their best popular vote share since 1988. Presuming that a lot of the former NDP vote is merely "parked" with the Liberals due to the Trump effect, the Tories are in a great position to win the next election scheduled in 2029, when the Manchurian Cantaloupe will be out of office.

[Crackpot]

Waiting for the update